An Assessment of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Measurement and Standards Laboratories Fiscal Year 2000 (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory
Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory
Pages 9-48
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Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory 9
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Cavin III, and its Vice Chair, Lori S Nye, this assessment of the fiscal year 2000 activities of the Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory is based on site visits by individual panel members, a formal meeting of the panel on February 17-18, 2000, in Boulder, Colorado, and documents provided by the laboratory.
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farad and ohm and the research on the use of single electron tunneling to measure current in collaboration with the Electromagnetic Technology Division. In the Radio-Frequency Technology Division, the advances in statistical electromagnetic modeling of field distributions in reverberation chambers are allowing staff to validate the use of these chambers as an alternative method of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC)
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For example, the Sem~conductor Electronics Division recently established a very good Web site on Hall measurement techniques and practices. Laboratory Resources Funding sources for the Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory are shown in Table 2.1.
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The new microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication facility in the Electromagnetic Technology Division in Boulder is a timely enhancement of KEEL capabilities, but it is equally important that adequate resources be set aside to meet the costs of operating and maintaining the new facility.
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DIVISIONAL REVIEWS Electricity Division Division Mission According to division documentation, the mission of the Electricity Division is to provide the world's most technically advanced and fundamentally sound basis for all electrical measurements in the United States by realizing the SI electrical units, developing improved measurement methods and calibration services, and supporting the measurement and standards infrastructure needed by U.S. industry to develop new products, ensure quality, and compete economically in the world's markets.
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The division has been very successful at balancing its portfolio of programs by continuing support of established activities while making investments in new approaches and technologies. In established areas, the Electricity Division continues to provide more than 25 percent of the calibrations done at NIST and to improve its capabilities to deliver these services for example, with the development of a new wideband waveform measurement technique.
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NIST is making a major contribution to the advancement of computer display interfaces, and the plans to increase the precision of the measurements are appropriate. The effort represented by the Plasma Processing and Gaseous Dielectrics project is much needed by the semiconductor industry, and the Electricity Division is an appropriate location for work on characterizing low-temperature discharges in order to facilitate realtime control and predictive modeling of etching and deposition processes.
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This approach could be expanded to include additional industrial models. The final activity in the Electricity Division is the work on the Information System to Support Calibrations (ISSC)
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The staff involved in the Plasma Processing and Gaseous Dielectrics project have made an effort to interact with appropriate representatives and organizations to ensure that important benefits are realized from this activity. Although the focus of this group is unique within the Electricity Division, there are strong connections with relevant semiconductor scientists within and outside NIST.
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As of January 2000, staffing for the Electricity Division included 63 full-time permanent positions, of which 57 were for technical professionals. There were also 11 nonpermanent and supplemental personnel, such as postdoctoral research associates and part-time workers.
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Semiconductor Electronics Division Division Mission According to division documentation, the mission of the Semiconductor Electronics Division is to provide technical leadership in research and development of the semiconductor measurement infrastructure essential to silicon and other advanced semiconductor technology needs.
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. ~ O Technical Merit and Appropriateness of Work The Semiconductor Electronics Division is divided into three groups: Materials Technology, Device Technology, and Integrated Circuit (IC)
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The potential economic impact of new technologies in this area has been projected to be tens of billions of dollars, but for NIST to affect the industry, the groundwork must be laid now in the Semiconductor Electronics Division. A collaboration on other III-V materials such as the nitrides between division staff with expertise in compound semiconductor manufacturing and Optoelectronics Division personnel could bring this emerging area into focus.
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In the past, the Semiconductor Electronics Division played a key role in aluminum metallization reliability studies; now the division must develop new industry standards for measurement structures and methods to allow thorough characterization of the bulk and surface electromigration properties of copper. The time frame in which industry needs these techniques is very short, and current staffing levels may be too low for NIST to meet the demand on industry's schedule.
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The Semiconductor Electronics Division and the NIST Office of Microelectronic Programs have played a key role in the international Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology consortium (SEMATECH) and the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA)
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There were also six nonpermanent and supplemental personnel, such as postdoctoral research associates and part-time workers. The quality of personnel in the division is very high and morale is good.
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New methodologies for transferring tools and standards to industry have increased the impact of NIST efforts and minimized the costs of ongoing support. In order to effectively support Office of Microelectronics Programs projects now within the Semiconductor Electronics Division, resources have been diverted from efforts to secure funding from other government agencies.
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From page 27... ...
There are successful collaborations with other NIST laboratories, and the panel emphasizes that the strong relationships between the Semiconductor Electronics Division and the Office of Microelectronics Programs allows NIST to work effectively with industry to develop the required technology base and measurement infrastructure for semiconductor design, manufacturing, and use. The division has successfully utilized the processing and measurement capabilities at other national laboratories and in industry to compensate at least partly for NIST's aging infrastructure and thus enable NIST staff to continue to execute the division mission satisfactorily.
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Below, the panel comments on a few of the 14 projects under way within these programs. In the Fundamental Microwave Quantities Program, NIST staff provide an assortment of core measurement services in power, voltage, impedance, scattering parameters, and noise over a variety of frequency ranges between 10 kHz and 110 GHz.
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The progress of the past year is illustrated by the prominent role of division staff on standards committees, and the panel expects the leadership of this group to help generate new industry standards within the next 2 years. Staff are also working on correlating measurements between the reverberation chamber and NIST's anechoic chamber.
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Division Resources Funding sources for the Radio-Frequency Technology Division are shown in Table 2.4. As of January 2000, staffing for the Radio-Frequency Technology Division included 57 full-time permanent positions, of which 51 were for technical professionals.
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Shortcomings in the air conditioning and fire suppression systems also compromise the facility's ability to support test work. Electromagnetic Technology Division Division Mission According to division documentation, the mission of the Electromagnetic Technology Division is to develop and promote advanced standards and measurement methods for the electronics, superconductor, and magnetic data storage industries and their related scientific communities; to employ phenomena
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Technical Merit and Appropriateness of Work The Electromagnetic Technology Division is doing high-quality work across the board, and in several areas, staff are setting the worldwide standard for their field. For the most part, the work is appropriate for NIST, but, as mentioned above, the challenge is to focus on those activities that provide the most value.
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From page 33... ...
The panel notes, however, that while the measurements on specific materials for companies and other government 6U.S. Department of Commerce, Technology Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Electromagnetic Technology Division: Programs, Activities, and Accomplishments, NISTIR 5089, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Md., January 2000.
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In collaboration with the Electricity Division, the Electromagnetic Technology Division's development of a new capacitance standard using single-electron tunneling is progressing at a reasonable rate; the panel hopes that next year's panel will be able to hear a comparison between the new standard and the calculable capacitor used currently. The group is also working on a "single-photon turnstile." This effort is a collaboration with the Semiconductor Electronics and Optoelectronics Divisions and, if successful, could lead to an array of applications using this new technology for photon manipulation.
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Impact of Programs The activities of the Electromagnetic Technology Division affect a variety of industries, researchers. and other government organizations.
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", ", ",, TABLE 2.5 Sources of Funding for the Electromagnetic Technology Division (in millions of dollars) , FY 1997 to FY 2000 Fiscal Year Fiscal Year Fiscal Year Fiscal Year Source of Funding 1997 (actual)
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While colocating the division's groups is important, it is equally essential that the already marginal operating budget of the division not be further depleted to pay these one-time moving expenses. Optoelectronics Division Division Mission According to division documentation, the mission of the Optoelectronics Division is to provide the optoelectronics industry and its suppliers and customers with comprehensive and technically advanced measurement capabilities, standards, and traceability to those standards.
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In the Fiber and Integrated Optics Group, the program outputs of the Optical Fiber Metrology project continue to be world-class; staff have added a significant number of new capabilities this year. The ongoing expansion of the fiber-optic industry is enabled by the critical tools provided by this group, including valuable SRMs for optical fiber coating diameter, fiber cladding diameter, pin gauge standard for ferrules, optical fiber ferrule geometry, polarization-mode dispersion (PMD)
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It is not clear to the panel that a workable industrial standard will be possible, but the information being gathered certainly highlights the issues. The panel continues to be enthusiastic about the Integrated Optics Metrology project, also in the Fiber and Integrated Optics Group.
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The recently initiated program to study and characterize the properties of III-V native oxides is also important and should be expanded to include collaborations with universities or industry and to use the advanced semiconductor analysis tools available in the Semiconductor Electronics Division. Initial work to measure the thickness and optical parameters of GaN-based materials is important and should be continued with close coupling to a university or industrial source of "devicelike" epitaxial films, including alloys of aluminum gallium nitride (AlGaN)
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Division Resources Funding sources for the Optoelectronics Division are shown in Table 2.6. As of January 2000, staffing for the Optoelectronics Division included 37 full-time permanent positions, of which 32 were for technical professionals.
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The panel was deeply distressed to learn that official funding for the Office of Optoelectronics Programs was not provided by Congress in fiscal year 2000 and has not even been proposed in the President's fiscal year 2001 budget. This new office is modeled after the Office of Microelectronics Programs and would supplement the work of the existing Optoelectronics Division by providing improved coordination of NIST-wide work in optoelectronics.
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Some of the projects are described in the review of the Semiconductor Electronics Division earlier in this chapter. Specific highlights of the Office of Microelectronics Programs portfolio not mentioned in that section include the following: · Continued development of the very-high-resolution energy-dispersive microcalorimeter x-ray detector (in the Electromagnetic Technology Division of KEEL)
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From page 44... ...
The panel recommends that NIST investigate the use of facilities such as the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at Stanford University and the Advanced Light Source at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that have successfully demonstrated the motivation and capabilities needed to work successfully with commercial semiconductor industry companies. Impact of Programs The overall effort of the Office of Microelectronics Programs to connect to industry, to comprehend industry needs, and to create measurement technologies responsive to industry's needs is commendable.
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The use of the Web to make Office of Microelectronics Programs activities and results available to a broader community could be increased. The Semiconductor Electronics Division's approach to setting program milestones and utilizing the Web could serve as a model for other divisions involved in office programs; the office's Web site should serve as a central reference point for the work spread across NIST.
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From page 46... ...
Much OLES research is conducted within the NIST Measurement and Standards Laboratories. Examples include the work on terahertz-wave concealed weapons imaging and detection system development in the Electricity Division of KEEL and development of national DNA SRMs in the Biotechnology Division of the Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory.
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Since this type of facility is critical for OLES activities, it is important that KEEL and NIST management quickly develop and implement a plan to ensure that OLES is able to operate or have relatively easy access to a replacement ballistics laboratory. MAJOR OBSERVATIONS The panel presents the following major observations: · The panel is very impressed by the high quality of the technical work under way in the Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory.
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This office is necessary to provide NIST-wide coordination of activities that are important to support the rapidly growing optoelectronics industry.
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